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Armand had a sneaking and slightly sinking feeling he knew who the archivist would name. And sure enough—

“Clara Morrow.”

“What?” Clara shot forward in her armchair. “I never did.” She looked at Armand, who was nodding.

“Non. You didn’t.”

“Who’s doing this?” Clara demanded. “And why? Do they have something against me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, find them, for Chrissake. God knows what else they’re doing in my name.”

Myrna took her hand and squeezed. “We know you probably didn’t kill that poor man.”

Clara yanked her hand away, in an overly dramatic gesture. But was grateful for the levity. However short-lived.

“May I have the file please? We’ll need it checked for prints and DNA.” Armand used a napkin to take the file from the archivist. “And you’re sure there’s no other copy?”

“I’m sure. I looked.” But her face had brightened, and so did Reine-Marie’s.

“It was a transcript, Armand. From an oral history.”

“Oui.”

“Which made us think there might be a recording,” said Reine-Marie.

“Took us a while,” said Patrice. “The old archives are in terrible shape, and most recordings weren’t kept once the transcriptions were made—”

“But—?” Ruth snapped. “Get on with it. What did you find?”

From a canvas bag at her side, Patrice pulled an old tape machine and a cassette.

It was labeled, Lost Nation. Oral History I.

“This is where the transcription came from. As far as I can tell, no one knew we still had it.”

“We didn’t know,” said Reine-Marie. “Patrice and I had to dig through boxes of old tapes.”

“Back in 1967, one of the locals who was interviewed for the oral history project was Flossy Fuller,” said the archivist. “She was over ninety at the time. May I?”

Patrice pressed play, and a reedy, fragile voice came out of the machine, and with it the story of Lost Nation.

CHAPTER 12

The seeds arrived with a rookie Sûreté agent, eager to meet the Chief Inspector.

He’d seen the head of homicide at the front of the classroom when Gamache had lectured at the academy. They’d all hoped that the storied head of homicide would tell them stories about his most challenging cases. And he did.

Just not the ones they were expecting.

To their surprise, the challenging part wasn’t just tracking down the killer. Wasn’t some dramatic shoot-out. Wasn’t some baffling piece of evidence, or clever ruse on his part. Or facing a particularly gruesome scene or killer.

The challenge was facing himself. It was what those cases uncovered in him personally. The doubts, the uncertainties. The difficult, almost impossible decisions. The moral and ethical lines the head of homicide had faced. And crossed. The realization that the law was not always just. That those lines, so clear when he’d been a student like them in the academy, were blurry. Blurring.

The challenge was facing those truths . Flinching, perhaps. But not looking away. Admitting to the things he regretted. The mistakes. The wounds he carried, not just the physical but the emotional, the psychological ones.

The times he’d been sorely tempted to run away. To call in sick.